Forbidden by Suzanne Brockmann Page B

out on a date with an upperclassman who didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t want to get it on with him.” She took a deep breath. She had his total attention, so she went on. “It was date rape. At the time I didn’t even know there was a name for it. I was too ashamed even to tell my roommate. It’s amazing the things you think when something like this happens to you. You think, it must’ve been my fault, I must’ve done something wrong, I must’ve said something to make him think I wanted this…. It really messed me up. I wanted to climb into my bed and hide for the rest of my life.
    “But I was hurt badly enough to need to go to the health center,” she continued softly. “The doctor there knew I’d been raped, and she asked me if I wanted to notify the police and press charges. I said no. Who would believe me? The boy was incredibly popular. He was smart and rich and a great athlete. Girls were dying to go out with him. God, I’d thought I was so lucky when he asked me to the movies.” She laughed—a snort of disbelief loaded with twenty-twenty hindsight. “So I just…never told anyone. At least not for about a year. I spent that year hiding from the world.”
    For the first time since she’d started telling her story, Cal shifted in his seat. “You don’t strike me as the kind of woman who hides from her problems.”
    “You’d be amazed what something like rape can do to even the strongest of women.”
    “What happened?” he asked softly. “What helped you learn to deal with it?”
    Kayla gazed into this man’s eyes, and found herself telling him something she’d never admitted to anyone. “In some ways I can’t deal with it,” she said. “In some ways I don’t know if I’ll
ever
be able to deal with it.” Like when it came to making love, to sharing intimacies. “I have managed to convince myself that what happened to me was not my fault though, that what that boy did was
wrong
. And that’s a solid start.”
    She looked away from him, suddenly terribly self-conscious. “So now you probably know a whole lot more about me than you wanted to know, huh?”
    “I still want to know how you got hooked up with the Boston Women’s Crisis Center,” he said quietly.
    “About a year later, the man who’d raped me was arrested,” she said. “Another girl pressed charges, and they went to trial. The Boston Women’s Crisis Center helped her post flyers—looking for other women who might’ve been assaulted by the same guy, to help with her case against him. I saw the flyer and called the hotline number. The woman I spoke to talked me into coming down to the center for a visit.” She glanced up at him. “I can’t tell you how incredible it was to talk to women who’d been right where I was. It was such a relief to be allowed to be angry and finally to acknowledge the fact that when that boy raped me, I wasn’t simply getting what I deserved.” She paused. “I wanted to help other women the way the center workers helped me. So I switched my major, did an extra year of study in social work and…here I am.”
    Cal was silent for a moment, turning his hat around in his hands. And when he spoke, his words surprised her. “Last night…” He met her eyes. “I hope I didn’t frighten you.”
    He was talking about when he’d kissed her.
    “If I did, I’m truly sorry,” he continued.
    “There was no way you could have known,” she said. “And besides, you didn’t. Frighten me.” On the contrary—she’d frightened herself. He was the first man in an eternity that she’d even halfway considered becoming intimate with. The thought still unnerved her enough to consciously change the subject. “We should talk about the best way to try to locate Liam.”
    Cal shifted again. “You got something in mind besides just asking questions?”
    “The people I spoke to thought it might be best if we don’t announce our arrival in Puerto Norte,” Kayla told him. “They thought we